Another Big Win For Putin!!!
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Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
Putin says west is provoking Russia into new cold war as ‘spies’ deported
Russian president denies fanning tensions and says Nato expansion in Europe has been ‘geopolitical game changer’
Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit in Brisbane. Amid criticism from several other leaders, the Russian president left early. Photograph: Tass/Barcroft
Alec Luhn in Moscow
Tuesday 18 November 2014 05.50 EST
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Vladimir Putin has suggested to a German interviewer that the west is provoking Russia into a new cold war. The airing of the interview, which was recorded by the German channel ARD in Vladivostok last week, followed Russia’s tit-for-tat expulsions of German and Polish diplomats, as well as the deportation of a Latvian accused of spying.
Asked whether the accusatory rhetoric between Moscow and Washington and a noticeable increase in Russian displays of military strength near western countries points to a new cold war, Putin said two rounds of Nato expansion in central and eastern Europe had been “significant geopolitical game changers” that forced Russia to respond.
Moscow resumed strategic aviation flights abroad several years ago in response to US nuclear bomber flights to areas near Russia that had continued after the cold war, he added.
“Nato and the United States have military bases scattered all over the globe, including in areas close to our borders, and their number is growing,” Putin said. “Moreover, just recently it was decided to deploy special operations forces, again in close proximity to our borders. You have mentioned various [Russian] exercises, flights, ship movements and so on. Is all of this going on? Yes, it is indeed.”
Putin has previously been accused by western leaders of fanning cold war-style tensions, most recently by the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, who said he told Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing last week that Russia should stop “trying to recreate the lost glories of tsarism or the old Soviet Union”. In August, Barack Obama told the late-night talk show host Jay Leno that the Russians often “slip back into cold war thinking”.
In a speech in Australia on Monday, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who spoke at length to Putin during the G20 summit in Brisbane this weekend, said western sanctions against Russia would remain in place as far and long as they were needed and warned of growing Russian influence in eastern Europe. She argued that Russia should not be allowed to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States.
Also on Monday, the European Union’s new foreign policy chief, Italy’s foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, called for intensified diplomacy, including trips to Kiev and Moscow, to end theUkraine crisis. Conservative commentators criticised Mogherini for being too soft on Russia after she was appointed in August, and her first meeting with other European foreign ministers on Monday saw them agree to consider additional sanctions against separatist leaders but not Russian officials.
The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, is to announce on Tuesday that the UK will donate communications equipment and 10 armoured vehicles worth £1.2m to the Ukraine special monitoring mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe , which is being expanded in the face of an increasingly unstable ceasefire in the east of the country.
During the ARD interview, Putin dodged a question about whether Moscow had supplied weapons to the separatists and deployed troops to eastern Ukraine, asNato and Kiev have argued. “Nowadays people who wage a fight and consider it righteous will always get weapons,” he said, blaming the west for supporting the government forces’ use of ballistic missiles.
“You want the Ukrainian central authorities to annihilate everyone there in eastern Ukraine,” Putin said. “Is that what you want? We certainly don’t. And we won’t let it happen.”
But a report on the weapons used in the Ukrainian conflict released on Monday by the consulting group Armament Research Services (ARES) suggested that rebels were “very likely” to have received arms from Russia “however the level of state complicity in such activity remains unclear.”
“It is very likely that pro-Russian separatist groups have received some level of support (including small arms, light weapons, guided light weapons, heavier weapons systems, and armoured vehicles) from one or more external parties,” the ARES report said, although it admitted that the “most significant sources” of weapons and armoured vehicles were domestic ones.
Putin also said Russia’s “friendship” with Germany was stronger than ever. German business groups have been among the most adamant opponents of sanctions. But in a sign of slipping political relations, Russia’s foreign ministry confirmed to the news agency RIA Novosti on Monday that it had expelled an employee of the German embassy in Moscow in response to Berlin’s “unfriendly actions toward an employee of one of Russia’s foreign institutions in Germany”. A Russian diplomat in Bonn had previously been expelled on suspicion of spying, Der Spiegel reported.
Moscow has also deported Alexei Kholostov, a former Latvian MP known as an advocate of Latvia’s Russian minority, on spying allegations, the Latvian foreign ministry told Interfax news agency on Monday. In a Russian television report aired this weekend, Kholostov said on camera that he was “in Russia on assignment for the Latvian special forces, which work under the CIA’s control”.
In another ongoing spy scandal, the foreign ministry also said on Monday it had expelled “several Polish diplomats” over “activities incompatible with their status”, a common euphemism for spying. Polish television reported that four diplomats had been deported. Poland’s foreign minister called the move a “symmetric response” after Polish authorities arrested a military officer and a Russian-Polish lawyer last month on suspicion of spying for Russia.
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
something exploded over the sky in Sverdlovsk 
apparently it's most likely a meteor
apparently it's most likely a meteor
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russia Delivers a New Shock to Crimean Business: Forced Nationalization
By Carol Matlack November 18, 2014
Photograph by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Pedestrians in Moscow pass a mural showing a map of the Crimean peninsula
Business in Crimea has taken a beating since the peninsula’s annexation by Russia. Crimea’s tourism industry collapsed, and companies were cut off from vital suppliers and customers in Ukraine. Now comes the latest blow: nationalization.
From bakeries to shipyards, Crimea’s Kremlin-backed government is moving aggressively to take over businesses that it deems “inefficient,” strategically important, or friendly to the government in Kiev.
Krymkhleb, the peninsula’s biggest bread and confectionery maker, was nationalized on Nov. 12 by government authorities who accused its owners of laundering money to finance military operations against pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. A company that supplies flour to Krymkhleb also was taken over.
STORY: Four Reasons Why Putin Could Be Marching Back Into Ukraine
Also on Nov. 12, authorities seized a resort complex owned by the holding company of Serhiy Taruta, a Ukrainian oligarch who replaced the former pro-Russian governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region for several months earlier this year. Crimean authorities said the resort was seized because its management had illegally blocked public access to nearby park lands.
Another recent target was Zaliv, Crimea’s largest civilian shipbuilder. In late August, men describing themselves as Crimean “self-defense” forces stormed the company’s headquarters in the port of Kerch and demanded that management hand over control to a Moscow-based company. “Currently, representatives of the legitimate government of [Zaliv] are not allowed to perform their functions,” the company said in a statement on its website, adding that its activities have been “completely blocked.” No official reason was given for the seizure, but Russian authorities have said they want to overhaul Crimea’s shipbuilding industry.
“All enterprises on the peninsula that operate inefficiently, are on the verge of bankruptcy, or have been abandoned by their owners, will be nationalized.” Sergei Tsekov, a senator who represents Crimea in the Russian parliament in Moscow, toldthe Russian-language news service 15 Minutes on Nov. 13.
STORY: Ukraine's Second City, Kharkiv, Eludes Rebel Hands
Crimea also has threatened to seize companies that it claims are in debt to Russian banks. One such case involves Crimean solar-power generating stations developed and operated by Activ Solar, an Austrian company. Sergey Aksyonov, Crimea’s recently elected prime minister, contends that Activ Solar owes $300 million to Russian banks. The company disputes that, saying it has no loan exposure to Russian institutions.
Russia moved swiftly after annexation to nationalize some Ukrainian state-owned enterprises, ranging from pipeline companies to health spas. It also took aim at oligarchs such as Igor Kolomoyskiy, vocally pro-Kiev governor of Ukraine’s Dniepropetrovsk region. Kolomoyskiy’s Privat Bank closed its Crimean branches after the annexation, leaving depositors to seek compensation from Moscow. Besides taking depositors’ money, Crimean prime minister Kolomoyskiy has financed military operations against separatists in eastern Ukraine, Aksyonov toldCrimea’s parliament in September, ITAR-Tass reported. “It is our moral right and our moral duty to carry out this nationalization,” he said.
Recent laws enacted by the parliament have expanded the government’s right to foreclose” on private property, and, according to one of the new laws, to seize assets considered to have “particular social, cultural, or historical value.”
STORY: Ukraine Faces Grim Choices After Parliamentary Elections
In some cases, Crimean authorities have said they were seizing businesses at the behest of employees who were being cheated or mistreated by management. “Employees established control of the enterprise on their own,” Aksyonov said after the takeover of Krymkhleb. “We just helped them a little.”
Such measures are turning Crimea into a “neo-Bolshevik criminal dictatorship,” Russian opposition party Yabloko said in a statement this week on its website. “The action to legitimize robbery must be cancelled, stolen property returned to owners, losses reimbursed.”
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-18/crimea-gets-renationalized
By Carol Matlack November 18, 2014
Photograph by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Pedestrians in Moscow pass a mural showing a map of the Crimean peninsula
Business in Crimea has taken a beating since the peninsula’s annexation by Russia. Crimea’s tourism industry collapsed, and companies were cut off from vital suppliers and customers in Ukraine. Now comes the latest blow: nationalization.
From bakeries to shipyards, Crimea’s Kremlin-backed government is moving aggressively to take over businesses that it deems “inefficient,” strategically important, or friendly to the government in Kiev.
Krymkhleb, the peninsula’s biggest bread and confectionery maker, was nationalized on Nov. 12 by government authorities who accused its owners of laundering money to finance military operations against pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. A company that supplies flour to Krymkhleb also was taken over.
STORY: Four Reasons Why Putin Could Be Marching Back Into Ukraine
Also on Nov. 12, authorities seized a resort complex owned by the holding company of Serhiy Taruta, a Ukrainian oligarch who replaced the former pro-Russian governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region for several months earlier this year. Crimean authorities said the resort was seized because its management had illegally blocked public access to nearby park lands.
Another recent target was Zaliv, Crimea’s largest civilian shipbuilder. In late August, men describing themselves as Crimean “self-defense” forces stormed the company’s headquarters in the port of Kerch and demanded that management hand over control to a Moscow-based company. “Currently, representatives of the legitimate government of [Zaliv] are not allowed to perform their functions,” the company said in a statement on its website, adding that its activities have been “completely blocked.” No official reason was given for the seizure, but Russian authorities have said they want to overhaul Crimea’s shipbuilding industry.
“All enterprises on the peninsula that operate inefficiently, are on the verge of bankruptcy, or have been abandoned by their owners, will be nationalized.” Sergei Tsekov, a senator who represents Crimea in the Russian parliament in Moscow, toldthe Russian-language news service 15 Minutes on Nov. 13.
STORY: Ukraine's Second City, Kharkiv, Eludes Rebel Hands
Crimea also has threatened to seize companies that it claims are in debt to Russian banks. One such case involves Crimean solar-power generating stations developed and operated by Activ Solar, an Austrian company. Sergey Aksyonov, Crimea’s recently elected prime minister, contends that Activ Solar owes $300 million to Russian banks. The company disputes that, saying it has no loan exposure to Russian institutions.
Russia moved swiftly after annexation to nationalize some Ukrainian state-owned enterprises, ranging from pipeline companies to health spas. It also took aim at oligarchs such as Igor Kolomoyskiy, vocally pro-Kiev governor of Ukraine’s Dniepropetrovsk region. Kolomoyskiy’s Privat Bank closed its Crimean branches after the annexation, leaving depositors to seek compensation from Moscow. Besides taking depositors’ money, Crimean prime minister Kolomoyskiy has financed military operations against separatists in eastern Ukraine, Aksyonov toldCrimea’s parliament in September, ITAR-Tass reported. “It is our moral right and our moral duty to carry out this nationalization,” he said.
Recent laws enacted by the parliament have expanded the government’s right to foreclose” on private property, and, according to one of the new laws, to seize assets considered to have “particular social, cultural, or historical value.”
STORY: Ukraine Faces Grim Choices After Parliamentary Elections
In some cases, Crimean authorities have said they were seizing businesses at the behest of employees who were being cheated or mistreated by management. “Employees established control of the enterprise on their own,” Aksyonov said after the takeover of Krymkhleb. “We just helped them a little.”
Such measures are turning Crimea into a “neo-Bolshevik criminal dictatorship,” Russian opposition party Yabloko said in a statement this week on its website. “The action to legitimize robbery must be cancelled, stolen property returned to owners, losses reimbursed.”
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-18/crimea-gets-renationalized
Ghost_In_A_Shell
Talk No Jutsu
something exploded over the sky in Sverdlovsk
apparently it's most likely a meteor
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Putin’s Russia is rapidly approaching irreparable decay; in the meantime, Washington should simply wait.
http://ow.ly/EuwnP
(Photo: Reuters)
http://ow.ly/EuwnP
(Photo: Reuters)
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
I Just Spent 7 Days Watching Only Russian News And Reading Pravda — Here's What I Learned
Putin: Russia 'Will Not Allow' Ukraine To Defeat Moscow-Backed Rebels
Ukraine Warns It Is Ready For 'Total War' Against Russian Troops Pouring Over The Border
Putin Describes The 'Meaning Of Life'
I grew up hating America. I lived in the Soviet Union and was a child of the cold war. That hate went away in 1989, though, when the Berlin Wall fell and the cold war ended. By the time I left Russia in 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, America was a country that Russians looked up to and wanted to emulate.
Twenty-three years later, a new version of cold war is back, though we Americans haven't realized it yet. But I am getting ahead of myself.
After Russia invaded Crimea and staged its referendum, I thought Vladimir Putin's foreign excursions were over. Taking back Crimea violated plenty of international laws, but let's be honest. Though major powers like the U.S. and Russia write the international laws, they are not really expected to abide by those laws if they find them not to be in their best interests. Those laws are for everyone else. I am not condoning such behavior, but I can clearly see how Russians could justify taking Crimea back - after all, it used to belong to Russia.
I was perplexed by how the Russian people could possibly support and not be outraged by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But I live in Denver, and I read mostly U.S. and European newspapers. I wanted to see what was going on in Russia and Ukraine from the Russian perspective, so I went on a seven-day news diet: I watched only Russian TV - Channel One Russia, the state-owned broadcaster, which I hadn't seen in more than 20 years - and read Pravda, the Russian newspaper whose name means "Truth." Here is what I learned:
Before I go further, let's visit the definition of propaganda with the help of the Oxford English Dictionary: "The systematic dissemination of information, especially in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view."
I always thought of the Internet as an unstoppable democratic force that would always let the truth slip out through the cracks in even the most determined wall of propaganda. I was wrong. After watching Russian TV, you would not want to read the Western press, because you'd be convinced it was lying. More important, Russian TV is so potent that you would not even want to watch anything else, because you would be convinced that you were in possession of indisputable facts.
Russian's propaganda works by forcing your right brain (the emotional one) to overpower your left brain (the logical one), while clogging all your logical filters. Here is an example: Russian TV shows footage of schools in eastern Ukraine bombed by the Ukrainian army. Anyone's heart would bleed, seeing these gruesome images. It is impossible not to feel hatred toward people who would perpetrate such an atrocity on their own population. It was explained to viewers that the Ukrainian army continued its offensive despite a cease-fire agreement.
Of course if you watched Ukrainian TV, you would have seen similar images of death and despair on the other side. In fact, if you read Ukrainian newspapers, you will learn that the Ukrainian army is fighting a well-armed army, not rebels with Molotovs and handguns, but an organized force fully armed by the Russian army.
Wikimedia CommonsChannel One Russia.
What viewers were not shown was that the cease-fire had been broken before the fighting resumed. The fact that Putin helped to instigate this war was never mentioned. Facts are not something Russian TV is concerned about. As emotional images and a lot of disinformation pump up your right brain, it overpowers the left, which capitulates and stops questioning the information presented.
What I also learned is that you don't have to lie to lie. Let me give you an example. I could not figure out how the Russian media came up with the $5 billion that "America spent destabilizing Ukraine." But then I found a video of a U.S. undersecretary of State giving an 8.5-minute speech; at the 7.5-minute mark, she said, "Since Ukrainian independence in 1991 … [the U.S. has] invested more than $5 billion to help Ukraine." The $5 billion figure was correct. However, it was not given to Ukraine in three months to destabilize a democratically elected, corrupt pro-Russian government but over the course of 23 years. Yes, you don't have to lie to lie; you just have to omit important facts - something Russian TV is very good at.
Another example of a right-brain attack on the left brain is "the rise of neo-Nazism in Ukraine." Most lies are built around kernels of truth, and this one is no different. Ukraine was home to the Banderovtsi, Ukrainian nationalists who were responsible for killing tens of thousands of Jews and Russians during World War II.
Putin justified the invasion of Crimea by claiming that he was protecting the Russian population from neo-Nazis. Russian TV creates the impression that the whole of Ukraine is overrun by Nazis. As my father puts it, "Ukrainians who lived side by side with Russians did not just become Nazis overnight."
Though there may be some neo-Nazis in Ukraine, the current government is liberal and pro-Western. Svoboda - the party whose members are known for their neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic rhetoric - did not get even 5 percent of the votes in the October election, the minimum needed to gain a significant presence in parliament. Meanwhile the TV goes on showing images of Nazis killing Russians and Jews during World War II and drawing parallels between Nazi Germany and Ukraine today.
What also makes things more difficult in Russia is that, unlike Americans, who by default don't trust their politicians - yes, even their presidents - Russians still have the czarist mentality that idolizes its leaders. Stalin was able to cultivate this to an enormous degree - most Russians thought of him as a father figure. My father was 20 when Stalin died in 1953, and he told me that he, like everyone around him, cried.
I keep thinking about what Lord Acton said: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The Putin we scorn today was not always like this; he did a lot of good things during his first term. The two that stand out the most are getting rid of the organized crime that was killing Russia and instituting a pro-business flat tax system. The amount of power Russians give their presidents, however, will, with time, change the blood flow to anyone's head. Come to think of it, even Mother Teresa would not have stood a chance in Russia.
AP Photo/Musa SadulayevPresident Vladimir Putin's birthday march.
- NOV. 18, 2014, 3:10 PM
-
Wikimedia CommonsMoscow, December 1941.
Putin: Russia 'Will Not Allow' Ukraine To Defeat Moscow-Backed Rebels
Ukraine Warns It Is Ready For 'Total War' Against Russian Troops Pouring Over The Border
Putin Describes The 'Meaning Of Life'
I grew up hating America. I lived in the Soviet Union and was a child of the cold war. That hate went away in 1989, though, when the Berlin Wall fell and the cold war ended. By the time I left Russia in 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, America was a country that Russians looked up to and wanted to emulate.
Twenty-three years later, a new version of cold war is back, though we Americans haven't realized it yet. But I am getting ahead of myself.
After Russia invaded Crimea and staged its referendum, I thought Vladimir Putin's foreign excursions were over. Taking back Crimea violated plenty of international laws, but let's be honest. Though major powers like the U.S. and Russia write the international laws, they are not really expected to abide by those laws if they find them not to be in their best interests. Those laws are for everyone else. I am not condoning such behavior, but I can clearly see how Russians could justify taking Crimea back - after all, it used to belong to Russia.
I was perplexed by how the Russian people could possibly support and not be outraged by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But I live in Denver, and I read mostly U.S. and European newspapers. I wanted to see what was going on in Russia and Ukraine from the Russian perspective, so I went on a seven-day news diet: I watched only Russian TV - Channel One Russia, the state-owned broadcaster, which I hadn't seen in more than 20 years - and read Pravda, the Russian newspaper whose name means "Truth." Here is what I learned:
- If Russia did not reclaim Crimea, once the new, illegitimate government came to power in Ukraine, the Russian navy would have been kicked out and the U.S. navy would have started using Crimean ports as navy bases.
- There are no Russian troops in Ukraine, nor were there ever any there. If any Russian soldiers were found there (and there were), those soldiers were on leave. They went to Ukraine to support their Russian brothers and sisters who are being abused by Ukrainian nationalists. (They may have borrowed a tank or two, or a highly specialized Russian-made missile system that is capable of shooting down planes, but for some reason those details are not mentioned much in the Russian media.) On November 12, NATO reported that Russian tanks had entered Ukraine. The Russian government vehemently denied it, blaming NATO for being anti-Russian.
- Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was not downed by Russia or separatists. It was shot down by an air-to-air missile fired by Ukraine or a NATO plane engaged in military exercises in Ukraine at the time. The U.S. has the satellite imagery but is afraid of the truth and chooses not to share it with the world.
- Ukraine was destabilized by the U.S., which spent $5 billion on this project. As proof, TV news showed a video of Senator John McCain giving a speech to antigovernment protesters in Kiev's Maidan Square. It was followed by a video of Vice President Joe Biden visiting Ukraine during the tumult. I wasn't sure what his role was, but it was implied that he had something to do with the unrest.
- Speaking of Joe Biden, I learned that his son just joined the board of Ukraine's largest natural gas company, which will benefit significantly from a destabilized Ukraine.
- Ukraine is a zoo of a country, deeply corrupt and overrun by Russian-haters and neo-Nazis (Banderovtsi - Ukrainian nationalists who were responsible for killing Russians and Jews during World War II).
- Candidates for the recent parliamentary election in Ukraine included Darth Vader (not kidding), as well as a gay ex-prostitute who claims to be a working man's man but lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion.
Before I go further, let's visit the definition of propaganda with the help of the Oxford English Dictionary: "The systematic dissemination of information, especially in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view."
I always thought of the Internet as an unstoppable democratic force that would always let the truth slip out through the cracks in even the most determined wall of propaganda. I was wrong. After watching Russian TV, you would not want to read the Western press, because you'd be convinced it was lying. More important, Russian TV is so potent that you would not even want to watch anything else, because you would be convinced that you were in possession of indisputable facts.
Russian's propaganda works by forcing your right brain (the emotional one) to overpower your left brain (the logical one), while clogging all your logical filters. Here is an example: Russian TV shows footage of schools in eastern Ukraine bombed by the Ukrainian army. Anyone's heart would bleed, seeing these gruesome images. It is impossible not to feel hatred toward people who would perpetrate such an atrocity on their own population. It was explained to viewers that the Ukrainian army continued its offensive despite a cease-fire agreement.
Of course if you watched Ukrainian TV, you would have seen similar images of death and despair on the other side. In fact, if you read Ukrainian newspapers, you will learn that the Ukrainian army is fighting a well-armed army, not rebels with Molotovs and handguns, but an organized force fully armed by the Russian army.
What viewers were not shown was that the cease-fire had been broken before the fighting resumed. The fact that Putin helped to instigate this war was never mentioned. Facts are not something Russian TV is concerned about. As emotional images and a lot of disinformation pump up your right brain, it overpowers the left, which capitulates and stops questioning the information presented.
What I also learned is that you don't have to lie to lie. Let me give you an example. I could not figure out how the Russian media came up with the $5 billion that "America spent destabilizing Ukraine." But then I found a video of a U.S. undersecretary of State giving an 8.5-minute speech; at the 7.5-minute mark, she said, "Since Ukrainian independence in 1991 … [the U.S. has] invested more than $5 billion to help Ukraine." The $5 billion figure was correct. However, it was not given to Ukraine in three months to destabilize a democratically elected, corrupt pro-Russian government but over the course of 23 years. Yes, you don't have to lie to lie; you just have to omit important facts - something Russian TV is very good at.
Another example of a right-brain attack on the left brain is "the rise of neo-Nazism in Ukraine." Most lies are built around kernels of truth, and this one is no different. Ukraine was home to the Banderovtsi, Ukrainian nationalists who were responsible for killing tens of thousands of Jews and Russians during World War II.
Putin justified the invasion of Crimea by claiming that he was protecting the Russian population from neo-Nazis. Russian TV creates the impression that the whole of Ukraine is overrun by Nazis. As my father puts it, "Ukrainians who lived side by side with Russians did not just become Nazis overnight."
Though there may be some neo-Nazis in Ukraine, the current government is liberal and pro-Western. Svoboda - the party whose members are known for their neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic rhetoric - did not get even 5 percent of the votes in the October election, the minimum needed to gain a significant presence in parliament. Meanwhile the TV goes on showing images of Nazis killing Russians and Jews during World War II and drawing parallels between Nazi Germany and Ukraine today.
What also makes things more difficult in Russia is that, unlike Americans, who by default don't trust their politicians - yes, even their presidents - Russians still have the czarist mentality that idolizes its leaders. Stalin was able to cultivate this to an enormous degree - most Russians thought of him as a father figure. My father was 20 when Stalin died in 1953, and he told me that he, like everyone around him, cried.
I keep thinking about what Lord Acton said: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The Putin we scorn today was not always like this; he did a lot of good things during his first term. The two that stand out the most are getting rid of the organized crime that was killing Russia and instituting a pro-business flat tax system. The amount of power Russians give their presidents, however, will, with time, change the blood flow to anyone's head. Come to think of it, even Mother Teresa would not have stood a chance in Russia.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
A few weeks ago Putin turned 62, and thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate his birthday. (Most Americans, including this one, don't even know the month of Barack Obama's birthday.)
In my misspent youth, I took a marketing class at the University of Colorado. I remember very little from that class except this: For your message to be remembered, a consumer has to hear it at least six times. Putin's propaganda folks must have taken the same class, because Russian citizens get to hear how great their president is at least six times a day.
We Americans look at Putin and see an evil KGB guy who roams around the country without a shirt on. Russians are shown a very different picture. They see a hard-working president who cares deeply about them. Every news program dedicates at least one fifth of its airtime to showcasing Putin's greatness, not in your face but in subtle ways. A typical clip would have him meeting with a cabinet minister. The minister would give his report, and Putin, looking very serious indeed, would lecture the minister on what needed to be done. Putin is always candid, direct and tough with his ministers.
I've listened to a few of Putin's speeches, and I have to admit that his oratory skills are excellent, of a J.F.K. or Reagan caliber. He doesn't give a speech; he talks. His language is accessible and full of zingers. He is very calm and logical.
Russians look at the Putin presidency and ask themselves a very pragmatic question: Am I better off now, with him, than I was before he came into power? For most the answer is yes. What most Russians don't see is that oil prices over the past 14 years went from $14 to more than $100 a barrel. They are completely responsible for the revival of Russia's one-trick petrochemical economy. In other words, they should consider why their economy has done better the past decade, and why it may not do as well going forward. Unless Putin was the one who jump-started China's insatiable demand for oil and other commodities that drove prices higher, he has had very little to do with Russia's recent "prosperity."
I place prosperity in quotes because if you take oil and gas riches away from Russia (lower prices can do that with ease), it is in a worse place today than it was 14 years ago. High oil prices have ruined Russia. They have driven its currency up, making its other products less competitive in international markets. Also, capital gravitates toward higher returns; thus oil has sucked capital from other industries, hollowing out the economy. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia had a chance to broaden its economy; it had one of the most educated workforces in the world. Sadly, it squandered that opportunity. Name one non-commodity product that is exported from Russia. There aren't many; I can think only of vodka and military equipment.
But most Russians don't look at things that way. For most of them, their lives are better now: No more lines for toilet paper, and the stores are full of food. Their personal liberties (such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press) have been taken away from them, but many have so much trust in their president that they don't mind, whereas others are simply complacent.
Today we see three factors that influence oil prices and are working against Russia: Supply is going up with U.S. shale drilling; demand growth will likely decline if the Chinese economy continues to cool; and the dollar is getting stronger, not because the U.S. is doing great but just because the rest of the world is doing worse. If oil prices continue to decline, this will expose the true state of the Russian economy.
When I visited Russia in 2008, I sensed an anti-American sentiment. NATO - which in Russia is perceived as a predominantly American entity - had expanded too close to Russian borders. Georgia tried to join NATO, but Russia put a quick end to that. Russians felt they extended a friendly hand to the U.S. after 9/11, but in response America was arraying missiles around its borders. (The U.S. says they are defensive, not offensive; Russians don't see the distinction. They are probably right.)
Getty ImagesHenry Paulson.
The true colors of this new cold war came to light recently. In August 2008, according to Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury secretary at the time, "top level" Russian officials approached the Chinese during the Olympics in Beijing and proposed "that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] holdings to force the U.S. to use its emergency authorities to prop up these companies."
This incident took place just weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The U.S. economy was inches from revisiting the Stone Age. The proposed Russian-Chinese maneuver could have made such an outcome more likely. The Federal Reserve would have had to step in and buy Fannie's and Freddie's debt, and the dollar would have taken a dive, worsening the plunge in the U.S. economy. Our friend Putin wanted to bring the U.S. economy down without firing a single shot, just as he annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
Today anti-American sentiment is much greater in Russia. European sanctions are seen as entirely unjustified. Here is why: Crimea had a "democratic referendum," and the Ukrainian conflict is believed to be not of Russia's doing but rather an American attempt to destabilize Russia and bring Ukraine into NATO. In his annual speech at the Valdai conference last month, Putin said America had pushed an unwilling Europe into imposing sanctions on Russia. America is perceived as an imperialistic bully that, because of its economic and military power, puts its own self-interest above everyone else's, and international law.
Putin uses anti-Americanism as a shiny object to detract attention from the weak Russian economy and other internal problems. In the short run, sanctions provide a convenient excuse for the weakening Russian economy and declining ruble. They have boosted Putin's popularity (at least so far). As the Russian economy gets worse, anti-American sentiment will only rise.
This new version of the cold war has little in common with the one I grew up in. There are no ideological differences, and there is no arms race (at least not yet, and let's be honest: Today neither country can afford one, especially Russia). At the core of it, we don't like what Russia is doing to its neighbors, and Russia doesn't like what we do to the rest of the (non-EU) world.
The criticisms of U.S. foreign policy voiced by Putin in his latest Valdai speech are shared by many Americans: The U.S. is culpable in the unresolved, open-ended Afghanistan adventure; the Iraq War; the almost-bombing of Syria, which may have destabilized the region further; and the creation of the Islamic State, which is in large part a by-product of all of the above. Yet Putin's abominable Ukrainian excursion and the thousands of lives lost were never mentioned.
But there is also something less tangible that is influencing Russia's behavior: a bruised ego. During the good old Soviet Union days, Russia was a superpower. It mattered. When it spoke, the world listened. The Russian people had a great sense of pride in their Rodina (Mother Russia). Today, if Russia did not have nuclear weapons, we'd pay much less attention to it than we do. Pick a developing country without oil whose president you can name. (Okay, we Americans can't name the president of almost any other country, but you get the point.)
REUTERS/Alexei NikolskyiPutin visits a Rosneft refinery in the Black Sea town of Tuapse in southern Russia.
Anti-Americanism and Putin's popularity will both rise as the Russian economy weakens. For instance, Putin took his own people hostage when he imposed sanctions on imports of European food. The impact on Europe will not be significant (the Russian economy is not very large in comparison to the European Union), but Russia is very dependent on these imports. In the U.S. consumers spend about 13 percent of their earnings on food, but in Russia that number is almost three times larger. Therefore, food inflation hurts Russians much more. Yet as food inflation spiked, so did Putin's popularity and anti-Americanism. Even declining oil priceswill be explained as a anti-Russian manipulation by the U.S.
Unfortunately, the only thing Russia has going for it today is its nuclear weapons. Russia has started to remind us of its military recently. According to NATO, the alliance "has conducted over 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft in 2014 to date, which is about three times more than were conducted in 2013."
Every article needs a conclusion, but this one doesn't have one. I am not sure what this new cold war means for the world. Will Russia start invading other neighboring countries? Will it test NATO resolve by invading Baltic countries that are part of NATO? I don't know. Economic instability will eventually lead to political crises. We have plenty of economic instability going on around the world.
I'll leave you with this thought: On March 7, 1936, the German army violated the Treaty of Versailles and entered into the Rhineland. Here is what Hitler later said:
"The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance."
Those two days determined what Germany would do next - build out its army and start World War II.
Comparing Putin with Hitler, as one of my Russian friends put it, is "absolutely abominable" because it diminishes Hitler's atrocities and overstates by a mile what Putin has accomplished to date. Yet it feels as if we are at a Putin-of-1936 moment. Will he turn into a Putin of 1939 and invade other countries? I don't know. But the events of the past nine months have shown Putin's willingness to defy international law and seize the advantage on the ground, betting - correctly so far - that the West won't call his bluff.
As Garry Kasparov put it, while the West is playing chess, responding tactically to each turn of events, Putin is playing high-stakes poker. We ignore Putin at our own peril.
Read more: http://www.institutionalinvestor.co...rging-markets.html#.VGt4HZPF_XI#ixzz3JSgGtOfe
In my misspent youth, I took a marketing class at the University of Colorado. I remember very little from that class except this: For your message to be remembered, a consumer has to hear it at least six times. Putin's propaganda folks must have taken the same class, because Russian citizens get to hear how great their president is at least six times a day.
We Americans look at Putin and see an evil KGB guy who roams around the country without a shirt on. Russians are shown a very different picture. They see a hard-working president who cares deeply about them. Every news program dedicates at least one fifth of its airtime to showcasing Putin's greatness, not in your face but in subtle ways. A typical clip would have him meeting with a cabinet minister. The minister would give his report, and Putin, looking very serious indeed, would lecture the minister on what needed to be done. Putin is always candid, direct and tough with his ministers.
I've listened to a few of Putin's speeches, and I have to admit that his oratory skills are excellent, of a J.F.K. or Reagan caliber. He doesn't give a speech; he talks. His language is accessible and full of zingers. He is very calm and logical.
Russians look at the Putin presidency and ask themselves a very pragmatic question: Am I better off now, with him, than I was before he came into power? For most the answer is yes. What most Russians don't see is that oil prices over the past 14 years went from $14 to more than $100 a barrel. They are completely responsible for the revival of Russia's one-trick petrochemical economy. In other words, they should consider why their economy has done better the past decade, and why it may not do as well going forward. Unless Putin was the one who jump-started China's insatiable demand for oil and other commodities that drove prices higher, he has had very little to do with Russia's recent "prosperity."
I place prosperity in quotes because if you take oil and gas riches away from Russia (lower prices can do that with ease), it is in a worse place today than it was 14 years ago. High oil prices have ruined Russia. They have driven its currency up, making its other products less competitive in international markets. Also, capital gravitates toward higher returns; thus oil has sucked capital from other industries, hollowing out the economy. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia had a chance to broaden its economy; it had one of the most educated workforces in the world. Sadly, it squandered that opportunity. Name one non-commodity product that is exported from Russia. There aren't many; I can think only of vodka and military equipment.
But most Russians don't look at things that way. For most of them, their lives are better now: No more lines for toilet paper, and the stores are full of food. Their personal liberties (such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press) have been taken away from them, but many have so much trust in their president that they don't mind, whereas others are simply complacent.
Today we see three factors that influence oil prices and are working against Russia: Supply is going up with U.S. shale drilling; demand growth will likely decline if the Chinese economy continues to cool; and the dollar is getting stronger, not because the U.S. is doing great but just because the rest of the world is doing worse. If oil prices continue to decline, this will expose the true state of the Russian economy.
When I visited Russia in 2008, I sensed an anti-American sentiment. NATO - which in Russia is perceived as a predominantly American entity - had expanded too close to Russian borders. Georgia tried to join NATO, but Russia put a quick end to that. Russians felt they extended a friendly hand to the U.S. after 9/11, but in response America was arraying missiles around its borders. (The U.S. says they are defensive, not offensive; Russians don't see the distinction. They are probably right.)
The true colors of this new cold war came to light recently. In August 2008, according to Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury secretary at the time, "top level" Russian officials approached the Chinese during the Olympics in Beijing and proposed "that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] holdings to force the U.S. to use its emergency authorities to prop up these companies."
This incident took place just weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The U.S. economy was inches from revisiting the Stone Age. The proposed Russian-Chinese maneuver could have made such an outcome more likely. The Federal Reserve would have had to step in and buy Fannie's and Freddie's debt, and the dollar would have taken a dive, worsening the plunge in the U.S. economy. Our friend Putin wanted to bring the U.S. economy down without firing a single shot, just as he annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
Today anti-American sentiment is much greater in Russia. European sanctions are seen as entirely unjustified. Here is why: Crimea had a "democratic referendum," and the Ukrainian conflict is believed to be not of Russia's doing but rather an American attempt to destabilize Russia and bring Ukraine into NATO. In his annual speech at the Valdai conference last month, Putin said America had pushed an unwilling Europe into imposing sanctions on Russia. America is perceived as an imperialistic bully that, because of its economic and military power, puts its own self-interest above everyone else's, and international law.
Putin uses anti-Americanism as a shiny object to detract attention from the weak Russian economy and other internal problems. In the short run, sanctions provide a convenient excuse for the weakening Russian economy and declining ruble. They have boosted Putin's popularity (at least so far). As the Russian economy gets worse, anti-American sentiment will only rise.
This new version of the cold war has little in common with the one I grew up in. There are no ideological differences, and there is no arms race (at least not yet, and let's be honest: Today neither country can afford one, especially Russia). At the core of it, we don't like what Russia is doing to its neighbors, and Russia doesn't like what we do to the rest of the (non-EU) world.
The criticisms of U.S. foreign policy voiced by Putin in his latest Valdai speech are shared by many Americans: The U.S. is culpable in the unresolved, open-ended Afghanistan adventure; the Iraq War; the almost-bombing of Syria, which may have destabilized the region further; and the creation of the Islamic State, which is in large part a by-product of all of the above. Yet Putin's abominable Ukrainian excursion and the thousands of lives lost were never mentioned.
But there is also something less tangible that is influencing Russia's behavior: a bruised ego. During the good old Soviet Union days, Russia was a superpower. It mattered. When it spoke, the world listened. The Russian people had a great sense of pride in their Rodina (Mother Russia). Today, if Russia did not have nuclear weapons, we'd pay much less attention to it than we do. Pick a developing country without oil whose president you can name. (Okay, we Americans can't name the president of almost any other country, but you get the point.)
Anti-Americanism and Putin's popularity will both rise as the Russian economy weakens. For instance, Putin took his own people hostage when he imposed sanctions on imports of European food. The impact on Europe will not be significant (the Russian economy is not very large in comparison to the European Union), but Russia is very dependent on these imports. In the U.S. consumers spend about 13 percent of their earnings on food, but in Russia that number is almost three times larger. Therefore, food inflation hurts Russians much more. Yet as food inflation spiked, so did Putin's popularity and anti-Americanism. Even declining oil priceswill be explained as a anti-Russian manipulation by the U.S.
Unfortunately, the only thing Russia has going for it today is its nuclear weapons. Russia has started to remind us of its military recently. According to NATO, the alliance "has conducted over 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft in 2014 to date, which is about three times more than were conducted in 2013."
Every article needs a conclusion, but this one doesn't have one. I am not sure what this new cold war means for the world. Will Russia start invading other neighboring countries? Will it test NATO resolve by invading Baltic countries that are part of NATO? I don't know. Economic instability will eventually lead to political crises. We have plenty of economic instability going on around the world.
I'll leave you with this thought: On March 7, 1936, the German army violated the Treaty of Versailles and entered into the Rhineland. Here is what Hitler later said:
"The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance."
Those two days determined what Germany would do next - build out its army and start World War II.
Comparing Putin with Hitler, as one of my Russian friends put it, is "absolutely abominable" because it diminishes Hitler's atrocities and overstates by a mile what Putin has accomplished to date. Yet it feels as if we are at a Putin-of-1936 moment. Will he turn into a Putin of 1939 and invade other countries? I don't know. But the events of the past nine months have shown Putin's willingness to defy international law and seize the advantage on the ground, betting - correctly so far - that the West won't call his bluff.
As Garry Kasparov put it, while the West is playing chess, responding tactically to each turn of events, Putin is playing high-stakes poker. We ignore Putin at our own peril.
Read more: http://www.institutionalinvestor.co...rging-markets.html#.VGt4HZPF_XI#ixzz3JSgGtOfe
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russian Accountant Loses Tooth in Ruble Devaluation
By Elena Popina Nov 19, 2014 2:23 AM ET
10 Comments Email Print
Save
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
Foreign currency exchange rates sit illuminated on an electronic sign outside a...Read More
In Rostov-on-Don, a Russian port city of 1.1 million people just east of the Ukrainian border, signs of the fallout from the ruble’s collapse are everywhere.
There’s the 27-year-old entrepreneur whose storage facility is packed to the ceiling with imported Spanish tiles that his clients can’t afford anymore. There’s the accountant who had a front tooth pulled, only to realize she didn’t have enough money to pay for the imported implant needed to fill the gap. And there’s the interior designer who’s resigned herself to getting no year-end bonus after watching sales plunge at the European furniture store she works in.
While President Vladimir Putin boasts of how his government has been cautious about spending its foreign reserves to defend the ruble, the decision not to pursue a more active approach is adding to the inflation surge that’s throttling the Russian economy. In southern cities like Rostov-on-Don, where wages don’t match those in Moscow, the pain is more evident: electronics stores, apparel shops and restaurants are emptier, and ads appealing to cash-strapped shoppers are everywhere.
“Nobody is buying,” Alyona Romanenko, the interior designer at House and Decor, said as she waited idly for customers to show up on a recent weekday. With the ruble tumbling 23 percent against the euro and 30 percent against the dollar this year, the store has been raising prices constantly to keep pace. She estimates about half the clients she’d been advising on furniture purchases recently have postponed their orders. “My customers are in bad shape right now and so am I,” she said.
Photographer: Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
The aerial view of the Don River and part of Rostov-on-Don is seen in Rostov-on-Don a...Read More
Oil Plunge
The ruble selloff that began early in the year with the Ukraine conflict -- and the international sanctions it would trigger -- has intensified as the price of oil, Russia’s biggest export, sank and the central bank took steps to allow the currency to trade more freely.
The exchange rate has dropped about 13 percent in the past month to 46.9995 rubles per dollar, the worst tumble since 2009. After spending more than $70 billion of foreign reserves to slow the declines in the first 10 months of the year, the central bank has only used $1 billion in November. No other major currency in the world has fallen more in 2014.
In an interview with state-run Tass news service last week in which he said the drop in oil could be “catastrophic” for Russia, Putin lauded how policy makers had been spending reserves “sparingly.”
Photographer: Ian Waldie/Bloomberg
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, stands for a family photograph at the G-20 summit... Read More
Fur Coats
The weaker currency gives his government more rubles for each dollar earned on oil exports, helping shore up the budget, but also adds to an inflation rate that’s already at a three-year high of 8 percent by driving up import prices. So far, Putin, 62, has maintained his popularity, earning an approval rating of 86 percent in a Levada Center survey of 1,600 people across Russia in September.
For Artyom Popov, the 27-year-old entrepreneur in Rostov-on-Don, the ruble devaluation has been a disaster.
Like his mother before him, Popov specializes in tracking down foreign products, ranging from fur coats to construction materials, and selling them to clients across the city.
Sales on his No. 1 product -- kitchen and bath tiles that he picks out himself in Spain -- are down 60 percent since July, Popov estimates. He’d been traveling to Spain every few months to purchase more tiles but said he has no plans to head back over anytime soon.
Missing Tooth
When clients see the price in euros, they say “it’s fine,” according to Popov. “Then I calculate that in rubles and I see it’s psychologically hard for them to pay 60 rubles for something that used to be 45,” Popov said as he maneuvered his black BMW X5 through traffic in Rostov-on-Don one afternoon this month. “They say it’s too expensive and leave.”
Sticker shock also applies to teeth repair.
After having her upper right canine tooth pulled, Ulyana Lyubyatina said she was told in early September that an implant made in Italy would cost 18,000 rubles, or about $480 at the time -- “a huge sum of money for me.”
Things only got worse from there.
A week later, the dentist’s office informed the 48-year-old accountant that it had run out of the implants and needed to reorder at a price of 24,000 rubles. Earlier this month, she said the price climbed again, to 25,000 rubles.
Unable to afford the import, yet loathe to buy a Russian-made implant that she says she wouldn’t trust, Lyubyatina is stuck with a temporary plastic tooth.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, shouting over the traffic in downtown Rostov-on-Don as she stood in line at a bank ATM. “I hope the ruble chaos will eventually calm down. What is going on now is crazy.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-18/russian-accountant-loses-tooth-in-ruble-devaluation.html
@Futuristic Eskimo @Domingo Halliburton
By Elena Popina Nov 19, 2014 2:23 AM ET
10 Comments Email Print
Save
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
Foreign currency exchange rates sit illuminated on an electronic sign outside a...Read More
In Rostov-on-Don, a Russian port city of 1.1 million people just east of the Ukrainian border, signs of the fallout from the ruble’s collapse are everywhere.
There’s the 27-year-old entrepreneur whose storage facility is packed to the ceiling with imported Spanish tiles that his clients can’t afford anymore. There’s the accountant who had a front tooth pulled, only to realize she didn’t have enough money to pay for the imported implant needed to fill the gap. And there’s the interior designer who’s resigned herself to getting no year-end bonus after watching sales plunge at the European furniture store she works in.
While President Vladimir Putin boasts of how his government has been cautious about spending its foreign reserves to defend the ruble, the decision not to pursue a more active approach is adding to the inflation surge that’s throttling the Russian economy. In southern cities like Rostov-on-Don, where wages don’t match those in Moscow, the pain is more evident: electronics stores, apparel shops and restaurants are emptier, and ads appealing to cash-strapped shoppers are everywhere.
“Nobody is buying,” Alyona Romanenko, the interior designer at House and Decor, said as she waited idly for customers to show up on a recent weekday. With the ruble tumbling 23 percent against the euro and 30 percent against the dollar this year, the store has been raising prices constantly to keep pace. She estimates about half the clients she’d been advising on furniture purchases recently have postponed their orders. “My customers are in bad shape right now and so am I,” she said.
Photographer: Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
The aerial view of the Don River and part of Rostov-on-Don is seen in Rostov-on-Don a...Read More
Oil Plunge
The ruble selloff that began early in the year with the Ukraine conflict -- and the international sanctions it would trigger -- has intensified as the price of oil, Russia’s biggest export, sank and the central bank took steps to allow the currency to trade more freely.
The exchange rate has dropped about 13 percent in the past month to 46.9995 rubles per dollar, the worst tumble since 2009. After spending more than $70 billion of foreign reserves to slow the declines in the first 10 months of the year, the central bank has only used $1 billion in November. No other major currency in the world has fallen more in 2014.
In an interview with state-run Tass news service last week in which he said the drop in oil could be “catastrophic” for Russia, Putin lauded how policy makers had been spending reserves “sparingly.”
Photographer: Ian Waldie/Bloomberg
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, stands for a family photograph at the G-20 summit... Read More
Fur Coats
The weaker currency gives his government more rubles for each dollar earned on oil exports, helping shore up the budget, but also adds to an inflation rate that’s already at a three-year high of 8 percent by driving up import prices. So far, Putin, 62, has maintained his popularity, earning an approval rating of 86 percent in a Levada Center survey of 1,600 people across Russia in September.
For Artyom Popov, the 27-year-old entrepreneur in Rostov-on-Don, the ruble devaluation has been a disaster.
Like his mother before him, Popov specializes in tracking down foreign products, ranging from fur coats to construction materials, and selling them to clients across the city.
Sales on his No. 1 product -- kitchen and bath tiles that he picks out himself in Spain -- are down 60 percent since July, Popov estimates. He’d been traveling to Spain every few months to purchase more tiles but said he has no plans to head back over anytime soon.
Missing Tooth
When clients see the price in euros, they say “it’s fine,” according to Popov. “Then I calculate that in rubles and I see it’s psychologically hard for them to pay 60 rubles for something that used to be 45,” Popov said as he maneuvered his black BMW X5 through traffic in Rostov-on-Don one afternoon this month. “They say it’s too expensive and leave.”
Sticker shock also applies to teeth repair.
After having her upper right canine tooth pulled, Ulyana Lyubyatina said she was told in early September that an implant made in Italy would cost 18,000 rubles, or about $480 at the time -- “a huge sum of money for me.”
Things only got worse from there.
A week later, the dentist’s office informed the 48-year-old accountant that it had run out of the implants and needed to reorder at a price of 24,000 rubles. Earlier this month, she said the price climbed again, to 25,000 rubles.
Unable to afford the import, yet loathe to buy a Russian-made implant that she says she wouldn’t trust, Lyubyatina is stuck with a temporary plastic tooth.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, shouting over the traffic in downtown Rostov-on-Don as she stood in line at a bank ATM. “I hope the ruble chaos will eventually calm down. What is going on now is crazy.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-18/russian-accountant-loses-tooth-in-ruble-devaluation.html
@Futuristic Eskimo @Domingo Halliburton
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
Russian exporters must be making a killing
MILITARY & DEFENSEMore: Ukraine United Kingdom Russia Military
The British Embassy In Kiev Is Trolling The Kremlin ...
- NOV. 19, 2014, 10:24 AM
- 6,570
- 9
The British embassy in the Ukrainian capital has tweeted out a snarky guide on how to recognize a Russian tank.
The guide was created to help Russia identify its own T-72BM tanks within Ukrainian territory.
The T-72BM is a signature Russian tank that is not used by the Ukrainian military. This necessitates that the tanks spotted throughout Ukraine were supplied by the Russians to the separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine.
According to the graphic from the British embassy, the T-72BM has been spotted at least three times during the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. Photographers managed to capture pictures of it on August 28 near the rebel stronghold of Luhansk, on September 4 in a dug in defensive position, and on October 23 by the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.
The tank's presence all but confirms Russia's military actions within its neighbor's borders. Ukraine had been claiming for months that Russian equipment was being shuttled across the border and was falling into the hands of the separatists in order to build a proper army.
Russia and the separatists instead claimed that the weapons had been looted from Ukrainian military bases and fleeing soldiers.
The T-72BM is a main battle tank that had been designed and produced during the Soviet Union. The BM model is distinguishable from other T-72 variants by the box-like armor in front of the turret and a larger gunner's sight that is used in conjunction with an anti-tank missile.
NATO warned on Nov. 12 that Russia was once again pouring troops and equipment into Ukraine on a massive scale. Although the exact number of troops was indeterminable, there were at least several convoys headed for the city of Donetsk prompting the Ukrainian president to declare that he was ready for "total war."
(H/t Daniel Sandford)
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/british-embassy-trolling-the-kremlin-2014-11#ixzz3JYypyWhf
January 1 2015 is coming up....we need to start working on that appreciation thread for the 15 year anniversary of Csar Putin's rule...this man came into office after the fat drunk bum Yeltsin and his 2% approval rating finally resigned
Csar Putin brought Russia back from the brink and rescued its economy and made it a strong nation again.......
Futuristic Eskimo
All Star
Higher oil prices did this.
We choking the shyt out of them like we did Japan prior to Pearl Harbor. Putin dumb ass going to get desperate. I wonder what he will do